Executive Summary of Premier’s speech at 2nd Reading Debate

Media Release: Executive Summary of Premier’s speech at 2nd Reading Debate for the Western Cape Appropriation Bill 2024

Today, 25 March, Premier Alan Winde delivered a speech at the 2nd Reading debate on the tabling of the Western Cape Appropriations Bill for 2024.

Below is an executive summary of his speech:

Our country last week marked Human Rights Day. This occasion offers us a moment of contemplation on the paramount importance of human rights and what is expected of us as leaders and a government in fulfilling the pledges we have made to the people we are duty-bound to serve.

To protect the rights of our citizens the Bill of Rights gives us all a clear, unambiguous understanding of the numerous rights we should all enjoy, protect, and respect.

Our municipalities, who are at the coal face of delivery, give further expression to the rights of our citizens, particularly to quality and dignified services.

Yet in too many instances this is unfortunately not the case. We have seen the tragic and - quite frankly - disgusting consequences of some local governments that have been allowed to fall apart: our citizens and residents suffer the most, and if left to fester, so too will economic growth and job creation.                             

In less than two years the Knysna Municipality, governed by a coalition of corruption, has allowed the town – a gem in our tourism crown – to fall into a state of chronic dysfunction. It leaves one asking: does the Municipal Council realise the extent of the dysfunction, maladministration and ineptitude that it has enabled? Do they even care about the needs of the citizens they are meant to be serving?  This disaster has become intolerable, not just to us but more importantly for the residents.

It is unfathomable that entire communities are rendered waterless and veritable mountains of refuse grow higher by the day posing serious health risks. This is an insult to the rights and needs of our citizens. The residents of Knysna and its surrounds deserve better!

But where municipalities struggle and fail, it is the duty of this provincial government to step up and step in to protect the rights of citizens, especially the most vulnerable.

I am cautiously encouraged that the Knysna Council has adopted the Diagnostic Assessment and Support Plan drafted by the provincial government. I urge the council to place the interests of the residents above everything else and urgently implement the actions and recommendations outlined in this plan. Fix the mess and bring stability to Knysna, for the sake of the residents who you are meant to serve.

Our Provincial Treasury has identified eight municipalities in the province that are in distress and require close monitoring and support.  We will keep a close eye on these municipalities. Regardless of who is running them, it is our constitutional duty to help.

Struggling municipalities are running out of options. Residents can only tolerate so much before their frustrations boil over. This cannot be allowed to happen.

It is to us as leaders who our citizens look to and we must be the hope that they are looking for. Our apex priority is the most vulnerable in society.  The Western Cape’s 2024 budget champions the needs of the poor, with two-thirds of the budgetary allocations going towards responding to their most pressing needs.

As a citizen-obsessed government, our priority is ensuring that all the residents of our great province are empowered and enabled to realise their full potential. We work tirelessly for our province, with our residents always top of mind.

That is why we have:

• The lowest unemployment rate in the country
• The best audit results for the 2022/23 financial year – every one of our departments and entities received unqualified audit results – the best in the country, confirmed by the Auditor-General.  Our solid track record of good governance spans multiple financial years. In 2021/22 100% of this government’s departments achieved clean or unqualified with findings audit opinions.
• The best-performing municipalities in the country, confirmed by Good Governance Africa.

Allow me to focus on this latter point: once again an independent body has recognised our efforts to ensure municipalities are on the straight and narrow:

According to the 2024 GGA report:

• Cape Town is the best performing Metro in South Africa.
• The top 4 District Municipalities in South Africa, in the category with no Water Service Authority, are ranked from the top: Cape Winelands, West Coast, Garden Route, and Overberg.
• The best 3 Local Municipalities in South Africa are all from the Western Cape.  Swartland (Best Small town) is the top municipality in the country, followed by Drakenstein (Best Secondary City), and Saldanha (Best Large Town) in third place.

These latest achievements are even more remarkable if you take into consideration the increasingly difficult and constrained financial climate we have been plunged into by national government over the years.

Municipalities are also on the frontline of our energy resilience drive. Our master plan to achieve energy security is the Western Cape Energy Resilience programme, complimented by our Growth For Jobs strategy, which is guiding us towards the ultimate goal of building up power generation capacity to 5700MW to ween our province from being completely dependent on Eskom for power generation, and be the first province in South Africa to beat load shedding.

Just under R7 billion in total is being spent over the next 3 years. This amount is made up of just over R1 billion from the province, R3.9 billion from the City of Cape Town, and R1.9 billion spent by other municipalities to make the Western Cape energy resilient.

A key pillar of both these ambitious plans is enabling municipalities to become an integral part of our efforts to end this disastrous load shedding:

• Hessequa Municipality is making steady progress in ensuring that the town of Riversdale becomes load shedding-free in the next few years with the construction of a solar generation plant with a battery energy storage system that will be built over 3 phases. Phase 1 is a 5MWA solar plant with 2MWh battery storage. Phase 2 is an additional 5MW solar plant with 2MWh battery storage and Phase 3 is 6MWh battery storage to provide a complete solution delivering a 10MW solar plant with 10MWh battery storage after 3 years.
• Last October Saldanha Bay Municipality issued a tender seeking competitive proposals from independent power producers to build power generation plants from which the municipality will buy its electricity.
• The City of Cape Town has a range of programmes from its cash-for-power scheme and plans to expand the Steenbras Hydroelectric Power Station, which already helps cushion the public from several stages of load shedding, to its embrace of innovation and technology in launching its online solar authorization portal to reduce waiting times for certifications to install residential solar and battery systems.
• Stellenbosch Municipality is embarking on a project to convert methane gas into the much less harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) from landfill sites. This process aims to generate roughly 500kW per day.

In early 2023, the Western Cape Government allocated R89 million to municipalities across the province to ensure that during load shedding, critical water infrastructure is protected, so that our residents have safe drinking water, despite load shedding.

Since 2019, the Western Cape Government has equipped 195 health facilities with generator capacity, and installed inverters in 47 rural clinics, to continue essential services during load shedding.

Another measure we have rolled out is providing load shedding relief packs to vulnerable groups. An initial 4 000 of these packs were distributed to WCG-funded social development facilities in December 2023. Thousands more of these packs will be distributed to vulnerable school learners in grades 1 and 12 over the coming weeks to offer them some relief from relentless power cuts.

We pride ourselves in this province on our sterling track record of clean and stable governance. From the provincial government, we have inculcated this culture of responsiveness, integrity, transparency, and accountability in our municipalities. We must never and will never abandon our citizens, many of whom are left out in the cold by national government’s many failures.

To our residents, we stand with you, for you. We are striving to do better for you, every day.